Book Image

Building Bots with Microsoft Bot Framework

By : Kishore Gaddam
Book Image

Building Bots with Microsoft Bot Framework

By: Kishore Gaddam

Overview of this book

Bots help users to use the language as a UI and interact with the applications from any platform. This book teaches you how to develop real-world bots using Microsoft Bot Framework. The book starts with setting up the Microsoft Bot Framework development environment and emulator, and moves on to building the first bot using Connector and Builder SDK. Explore how to register, connect, test, and publish your bot to the Slack, Skype, and Facebook Messenger platforms. Throughout this book, you will build different types of bots from simple to complex, such as a weather bot, a natural speech and intent processing bot, an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) bot for a bank, a facial expression recognition bot, and more from scratch. These bots were designed and developed to teach you concepts such as text detection, implementing LUIS dialogs, Cortana Intelligence Services, third-party authentication, Rich Text format, Bot State Service, and microServices so you can practice working with the standard development tools such as Visual Studio, Bot Emulator, and Azure.

Related Content you might be interested in

Current Title:

Small book image
Building Bots with Microsoft Bot Framework
Kishore Gaddam
May, 2017 | 424 pages
Small book image
Learning Microsoft Cognitive Services
Leif Henning Larsen
Mar, 2017 | 372 pages
Small book image
Microservices with Azure
Rahul Rai | Namit Tanasseri
Jun, 2017 | 360 pages
Small book image
Learning Microsoft Cognitive Services
Leif Henning Larsen
Oct, 2017 | 368 pages
Table of Contents (10 chapters)
Preface
Preface
What this book covers
What you need for this book
Who this book is for
Conventions
Reader feedback
Customer support
Free Chapter
1
Setting up Microsoft Bot Framework Dev Environment
Setting up Microsoft Bot Framework Dev Environment
Conversation as a Service (CaaS)
Your bot
The Bot Connector
The Bot Directory
Setting up the development environment
Messages
Cards and buttons
Groups
Calling
Summary
2
Developing Your First Bot Using the Connector and Builder SDK
Developing Your First Bot Using the Connector and Builder SDK
Bots are evolving
Bots use cases
Developing your first bot
Creating our first bot
Post method
How to deploy and run the bot application in the Bot Framework emulator locally
How to use dialogs in bot applications
How to use FormFlow in the bot application
Summary
3
Developing WeatherBot Using Dialogs and LUIS
Developing WeatherBot Using Dialogs and LUIS
Language Understanding Intelligent Service (LUIS)
Intents and Entities
Training your bot using utterances
Development of WeatherBot code
Calling LUIS from the bot
Natural speech and Intent processing bot using Microsoft Cognitive Services
Identifying the name of a person, place, and company using LUIS
Training your app
Calling LUIS from the bot
Summary
4
Natural Speech and Intent Processing Bot Using Microsoft Cognitive Services
Natural Speech and Intent Processing Bot Using Microsoft Cognitive Services
Microsoft Cognitive Services
Identifying the name of a person, place, and company using LUIS
Training your app using utterances
Calling LUIS from the bot
Summary
5
Developing Bots Using LUIS Prompt Dialogs with State and Nearby Bot Using Custom APIs
Developing Bots Using LUIS Prompt Dialogs with State and Nearby Bot Using Custom APIs
Employee Enroll bot using LUIS prompt dialogs
Creating the C# class for LUIS response
Bot state service
Developing a Nearby Bot using custom APIs
Summary
6
Developing an IVR Bot for a Bank Using Advanced Microsoft Bot Framework Technologies
Developing an IVR Bot for a Bank Using Advanced Microsoft Bot Framework Technologies
High-level architectural diagram
Let's start coding
Storing the bot conversation (new account info) data in an Azure SQL database
Checking your savings account balance using the bot
Checking your current account balance using the bot
Paying your credit card bill using the bot
Deleting an account using the bot
Summary
7
Intelligent Bots with Microsoft Bot Framework and Service Fabric
Intelligent Bots with Microsoft Bot Framework and Service Fabric
Getting started using stateless microservices
Publishing a Service Fabric project in Azure
Summary
8
Developing Intelligent Facial Expression Identification Bot for IoT Using Azure and Power BI
Developing Intelligent Facial Expression Identification Bot for IoT Using Azure and Power BI
Before getting started
Configuring Raspberry Pi and sensors
Device identity and registry with IoT Hub
Face API
Emotion API
Sign Up Microsoft Cognitive Services
Registering your Bot in Bot Framework
Configure Direct Line Channel
Develop an UWP app for Raspberry Pi device
Deploy Code in to Raspberry Pi
Show facial analytics data in Power BI
Summary
9
Publishing a Bot to Skype, Slack, Facebook, and the GroupMe Channel
Publishing a Bot to Skype, Slack, Facebook, and the GroupMe Channel
Publishing bots to various channels
Registering your bot with Microsoft Bot Framework
Configuring channels
Summary

Developing your first bot

The Microsoft Bot Framework allows developers to develop code once and, using the Microsoft Bot Connector, deploy it onto multiple channels, including SMS, Slack, Facebook Messenger, Skype, GroupMe, and many other channels:

Figure 1: Various channels available in the Microsoft Bot Framework

The Microsoft Bot Framework has three main components:

  • Bot Connector: This allows you to easily connect your bot to Slack or Skype, via SMS or the web
  • Bot Builder SDK: An SDK that allows you to develop bots using C# .NET or Node.js, which is open source
  • Bot Directory: A collection of all approved bots connected through the Bot Connector; it is a marketplace where users can search for bots to add in their chat applications
It's really important for Visual Studio to be updated in order to use the Bot Directory, as well as download the web tools in the Visual Studio setup. Update all VS extensions...
Previous Section
End of Section 4
Next Section